High School Family Reunion
by scifi-chick
Summary: Max moves to a new school and meets her friends and a connection to the past.


_**High School Family Reunion**_

It had been about 8 years since Max and the other x5's broke out of Manticore. She had been in and out of foster homes a lot in the past, but a family decided to keep her for the rest of the year because it was her senior year. It was the middle of the year; she was just transferred to that school. Her previous foster parents were going to have her stay the whole year, but there was a death in the family. They didn't want her to miss any school.

The family came and picked her up. After a while of driving, they pulled into a driveway. Max got out of the car and grabbed her things. "We're here," said Mrs. Candid, her new foster parent. "Do you need any help?"

"No, I'm aiight," answered Max. "Where's my room?"

"Over here," said Mr. Candid, as he opened the door to her room.

"Thanks," Max replied.

"Feel free to look around," said Mrs. Candid.

"Okay, I will," replied Max. She left her new bedroom and began looking around. I'll unpack later. It isn't the best place I've been, but I've seen worse. After a little while of looking around, Max unpacked and went down to the living room.

"School starts tomorrow," said Mrs. Candid.

"Okay, I better get some rest," Max said heading to her room. Max shut her door, changed her clothes, and climbed out her window. She wanted to know the town and meet some people. She walked around for a while, and she seen some people her age. They walked over to her.

"Ya new here? Name's Original Cindy. That's Kendra, Herbal Thought, and Sketchy. What's yours," asked an 18 year old girl.

"Yeah, the name's Max. Got here this afternoon, start school tomorrow."

"What's your classes," asked Kendra.

"Don't know yet. I find out tomorrow."

"We'll show you around," Herbal said.

"Okay. See ya tomorrow."

The next morning, Max woke up, took a shower, and got ready for the day. She packed her things in her bag and headed to the kitchen. Mrs. Candid had breakfast all made and gave Max her food.

After breakfast, Mr. Candid asked, "Do you want a ride to school?"  
"No thanks. I'm going to walk."

"Okay, have a nice day."

"Yeah," Max answered as she left. It didn't take long for Max to get to school. She went straight to the office to get her information. As she walked out of the office, she saw Original Cindy and her crew.

"There ya are. We were wondering ya was gonna be here," said Sketchy.

"What's your classes," asked Kendra.

"Gym, math, science, and chemistry."

"Ya have gym with me, math with Kendra, Herbal has science, and chemistry with Sketchy," Original stated.

"I have a class with all of you. Well, I need to go to my locker, later."

Max walked away and headed to the lockers. She had to zoom in on the locker numbers to find her locker. She opened her locker and began to put things in. She packed her bag for gym and made sure she had her medicine. "You new here? My name's Sam," a boy, her age, with blonde hair and blue eyes at the next locker said.

Max looked up and said, "Yeah, name's Max." They smiled at each other.

Sam's girlfriend walked up and seen Max. Then said, "Let's go to class." They walked away. Max shut her locker and headed to the gyms locker room. She changed her clothes and walked into the gym. She walked over to Original Cindy and started stretching. Max looked up and seen Sam and Leah. The teacher took attendance and said, "We have a new student. Max, tell us about yourself."

"Name's Max, that's all you need to know."

"Come on, open up. When's your birthday? Why did you come to school in the middle of the year? What do you like to do? Any brothers and sisters?"

"Okay. Don't know. New foster parents. Be with my friends and fight. Kind of."

"Why don't you know when your birthday is? What happened to your old foster parents? What happened to your real parents? And what do you mean kind of?"

"Nobody told me. Family died. Don't know. And kind of means kind of."

"When's the first time you were a foster child? And how long was your longest time at a foster home?"

"The day I was born and 9 years."

"Alright, let's begin class. Run." Max ran with Original Cindy for awhile, then decided to do a real work out and sped up. She was about to pass Sam and Leah when he sped up, too. They raced each other and when the teacher blew the whistle, for them to stop. Sam was just ahead. Max looked at him for a minute, but when he looked at her she looked away. Leah walked up to Sam and they started to walk away as Original Cindy walked up.

"You're fast, but Sam's faster." Max just smiled at the remark and walked into the weight lifting room. After awhile, Max and Original Cindy walked into the gym and started hitting volleyballs. Max hit a ball against the wall and it bounced hitting and knocking Leah over. Max ran over, helped Leah up, grabbed the ball, apologized, and left.

The teacher blew the whistle, to let them shower up. Max walked out of the locker room and started to shoot basketballs. Max looked up as the teacher asked, "Do you want to be on the track team?"

"The track team?"

"Yeah, you're fast. Sam will train with you and give you information."

"Okay, sure." The teacher smiled and walked away.

"Do you want to work out after school," asked Sam.

"Sure, where at?"

"I'll meet you at your locker."

"Kay, later," Max walked toward Original Cindy.

"What was that about?"

"He's gonna train with me for the track team."

Original Cindy smiled and said, "Ya like him, don't ya?"

"No!" Max smiled and said, "Maybe."

"Maybe yes."

"But he has a girlfriend."

"So." Max smiled at her friend. The bell rang and they left. Max switched her things and went to math class. The bell rang as she sat down next to Kendra. The math teacher didn't introduce her to the class like the gym teacher. Math class went fast for Max because it was easy.

At lunch, Max sat with the four of her friends and ate in silence. After awhile, the bell rang and they went to class. Herbal and Max went to science class and then Max went to chemistry with Sketchy.

As they walked into class, Max seen Sam. Class started and everything was out of the book at first, but then they started mixing chemicals. The teacher had Max, Sketchy, and Sam as a group of three. Sketchy was bad and was usually partnered with Sam because he was really good and Max was new.

They were just mixing things to see the reactions of the chemicals. The chemicals were harmless. The bell rang and Max told Sketchy what was going on. She opened her locker and got ready to leave. Sam walked up as Max shut her locker. "Ready," he asked.

"Yeah. Where do we go?"

"Depends. Do you want to run or what?"  
"Running is good. I need to change and stretch first though."

"Yeah, same here." They went to the gym's locker rooms. Max changed and popped some tryptophan. Then she walked into the gym and started stretching with Sam. After they started to run for a while, Sam asked, "What happened to your parents?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't the foster care people tell you?"

"They don't know either. Nobody really knows. The only people that did, never would tell me."

"That's odd," he said as they entered the gym. "Maybe you were involved in what happened to them."

"Yeah, maybe," Max said as she went into the locker room. She showered, changed, took some more tryptophan, and walked into the gym. Sam was already out there waiting. He looked up and they said, "Bye," to one another.

The weather was nice outside as Max walked home. Se walked in the house and grabbed a sandwich. After she started to eat, she noticed a seizure was coming on, so she told her foster parents that she was going to go do her homework and go to bed.

She walked into her room, threw her bag on the bed, and swallowed her pills. She sat there a little while, then laid down and fell asleep.

She woke up and seen someone in her room as a seizure started up. She couldn't tell who it was, but decided to attack because they were going threw her things. She leapt on the persons back and brought them both to the floor. Her seizure got the better of her and she hit her head on the dresser.

Max woke up the next morning, with sunlight shining in her eyes. "What happened," Max thought. Then she remembered as she felt her head. "I'm not at Manticore, but whoever was here, was stronger than me." She lifted the ice pack off her head, felt pain, and put it back on. "The person had to be from Manticore, but why didn't they take me back? I better keep an eye out."

It was getting late, so she quickly got ready and ran down the stairs. "Gotta go. Gonna be late." Max ran into school and thought, "Being an X5 has its good points."

She went into the gym and seen Original Cindy heading to the locker room. She ran and caught up with her. "Hey," she said.

"Hey, where have you been and what happened to your head?" they entered the locker room.

"I overslept and I hit my head on my dresser. Is it really bad," she asked. "Is it easy to notice?"  
"Yeah, it looks like you were in a car accident." They changed and Original Cindy started to leave. "Are ya coming'," she asked.

"Yeah, I'll be out in a minute."

"Okay," OC said as she left.

Max took some extra pills as she thought, "There's no time for accidents." Max walked into the gym as the teacher blew her whistle. Max ran over to Original Cindy. They started running together. "I'm gonna hafta be careful," Max thought.

Sam and Leah were running together and he thought, "If Max is Max, what is she doing here? Did she escape or did Lydecker send her after me? Max has to be Max because she has seizures like she use to and she's fast. I should have checked her for a barcode." He was pulled from his thoughts as he ran into Max knocking them both over. "Sorry," he said. "I was thinking."

"What about? I mean what could possibly keep you so absorbed in your thoughts?"

"Uh, nothing," he said as he got up and helped her up.

Leah came up and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Sam answered.

"Time's up," the teacher said. Everyone went into the weight room. Max and Original Cindy started lifting weights right next to each other and talked about various things. Then they went out and played volleyball.

Sam came up and said, "There's track practice after school today. We're going to time our runs and you can meet everyone on the team."

"Okay, thanks."

"No problem." He walked away.

"Are ya gonna be okay, with your head injury?"

"Yeah," she said thinking, "It's not my head I'm worried about." They changed and went to their next classes.

Max went into her math class and seen Kendra and sat down. "We're having an exam today. How boring." Class went fast and lunch went even faster. Herbal and Max went to science. "Today, we're dissecting frogs."

When the class was done, Herbal said, "You're good at dissecting, most people don't like it."

"Well, I'm not most people." Max went into the chemistry room. "FWhat are we doing today?"

"We have a guest speaker," Sketchy said. Donald Lydecker introduced himself to the class.

"Oh, no. He's after me," Max thought. "Who was in my room last night? If it was Lydecker, he could have taken me back then." More thoughts flew through her mind.

"I work with chemicals of the human body. I mostly work with science and that's tomorrow. Anyway, we're going to mix many different chemicals together. I'm going to have you take notes and I send you results on what it does, but I need what you mix together."

Sketchy, Max, and Sam were partnered up together again. Sketchy started putting stuff together. "Are ya measuring everything you put in there," Max asked.

"No," Sketchy replied. "Why?"

"The amount in there can change the reactions," Max answered.

"Very good," said Lydecker. "How did you know that?"

"I learned it at my old school," Max replied swiftly. Lydecker looked at her oddly, smiled, and then walked away.

"Do ya mind if I mix something up?" She didn't even wait for an answer.

"Max," Sam said. "Remember in gym when I ran into you?"

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking about this girl that reminded me of you."

Max looked up quickly. "Really? Tell me about her." She mixed more.

"She had the same name as you. We went to the same school. We left, but I don't know if she left." He looked her in the eye. She picked up the two beakers of chemicals and walked over to Lydecker. She tossed one beaker in his eyes.

"Oops," she said. "My mistake."

He clenched his teeth and asked, "What was in that?"

"Just this and that, to make acid," Max said innocently.

"I knew someone from Manticore was here. Long time no see."

Max looked at him. "Yeah, but you're never gonna see me again."

"So who is this?"

"You mean ya don't know your own children? That hurt's me, it really does," she said sarcastically. "I thought you'd at least recognize something. Hair, attitude, eyes, name…" She emphasized the last one.

"Ah, 452," Lydecker realized. Max turned toward Sam.

"I don't know who you are or why you're here, but I'm not going back."

"Who are you talking to? The team is waiting until I give them a signal," Lydecker pushed a button. "Which I just did."

"Who are you," Max asked Sam.

"I'll tell you later," he grabbed Max.

"Where are we going? I can't trust you."

"You have to. Come on."

"Hold on, I'm not leaving any of my friends behind," Max said as she grabbed Sketchy.

"You're not going to escape, especially with humans," Lydecker said.

"You underestimate the power of us not wanting to go back." They left and got the rest of her friends. "So who are ya," Max asked.

"I said I'd tell you later."

"It's later, tell me."

"Zack, Maxie," he stated.

"No, Zack has to still be at Manticore, because he wouldn't have left me." She attacked him. They fought equally for a while, then he got the better of her. He though her on her back and pinned her down. They heard people coming around the hallway. He got off her and helped her up. The others came over to them.

"What's goin' on," Original Cindy asked.

"I'll tell ya later," Max said. "What are we gonna do?" She looked at Zack.

He looked around quickly, then said, "The vent. Come on." He opened the vent "Go and be very quiet." Max went first then Original Cindy, Kendra, Herbal, Sketchy, and Zack got in last and carefully shut the vent. They carefully started to crawl through the small vent.

Max started thinking about if Zack was really Zack before reaching the end of the vent.. She kicked the vent door out. She climbed out and helped everyone else out. They were by the schools exit.

Max looked out the window and said, "There's a few guards out there."

"We can take them out," Zack said matter of factly.

"Where's your creativity? Just follow my lead."

"Fine," he said. "You always got your way."

Max smiled. "Come on. Let's go." They went out the door. The guards aimed their weapons. "There's a girl in there, knocking people around. They need your help."

"We're not aloud to leave our positions," one of the guards answered.

"So, you're going to leave them in there and not help them." they turned to go back in.

"Wait! Stay here with the others. I'll take a team in." They took out the remainder of the team.

"What are we doin'," Cindy asked.

"Making it harder for us to find," Max explained as they ran through the woods. They found their way to a road and headed to Max's house.

"They didn't plan this very well, did they," Zack asked. "Depends on how you look at it I guess."

"Yeah, I guess," Max said. "So, why did you change your name?"

"Harder for Lydecker to track me."

"Okay, so why the name Sam?"

"I don't know."

"Thought Zack always had a reason."

"I changed. Everyone changed."

"What?"

"No more Manticore."

"No that's not what I meant. What's everybody?"

"The others."

"You know where they are?" Zack just nodded in reply. "How long have you known?"

"Depends. Some I found after the escape and others I found a while later. You're the hardest one to find and you found me. I know you would be because you were the best at escape and evade."

Max walked into her house. She quickly packed most of her clothes and started to leave. Zack stopped her. "Lydecker could find out where you live and get information out of your stuff." Zack started a fire.

"Some people never change. I don't know if that is good or bad. Where are we going now," Max asked.

"To see the others."

"What about my friends?"

"They can come with us. What a better cover." Max was happy, she had her friends and were going to be reunited with the other x5's. They drove off into the sunset, together again.


End file.
